Yesterday, my dual G5 2 ghz 2 gigs of ram computer was capturing HD100 fine, now I go into HDVxDV and it won't recognize anything. I go into FCP and try capturing DV footage and it won't register or communicate through firewire, does anyone have any ideas as to what's going on? Is there some way to check if firewire is active? This is a really strange situation and it has me worried, none of the firewires seem to be working... What should I do? Sorry once again for being so annoying but the world seems to be crashing down this week.

Tim Dashwood

January 5th, 2006, 06:51 PM

You could run the System Profiler and click on "Firewire" to check if it sees the camera.

or:

-Check that the camera is turned on.
-Check that there is a tape in the camera.
-Check the position of the HDV/DV switch.
-Check that you are in VTR mode.
-Try a different cable.
-Make sure no other applications that use firewire are running (iChat, iMovie, FCP, LumiereHD, DVHSCAP)
-Reboot, then turn on camera and push VTR button, then launch HDVxDV.
-Try the HD100 on someone else's computer.
-Try a different camera on the G5 to confirm firewire operation with FCP (even a consumer miniDV)
-run the software update

and if you get really desperate, re-install OS X on a separate internal HD.

Bruce Meyers

January 5th, 2006, 10:15 PM

Thanks for the advice Tim, I tried all the obvious things and nothing worked. I ran system profiler and all it says is maximum speed up to 800 MB, I've tried most of the holes on the computer, both firewires... Why would it not work like that all of a sudden? I tried a minidv camera and it didn't register either, I tried connecting an old broken ipod and it didn't seem to register either, what needs to be done?

Peter Shindler

January 7th, 2006, 01:15 AM

I am posting this on the two places where people have this so it may seem repetitive. What might have happened is that your firewire ports are actually dead. Firewire is NOT hot-swappable like they say it is, especially with a 6 pin lead, due to the six pin actively carrying a charge. When you plugged your camera in, you must have had the camera on, and it sent a small electrical short that fried a small jumper in the camera. I have seen this happen to many cameras here (Phoenix) more so because it is dry, and static charge is larger here, but I have seen it happen to XL-1, Xl-2, DVX, and a HD-100U. I have had to send a personal camera of mine in, due to this exact same thing.

Hope this helps.

Peter

Jiri Bakala

January 7th, 2006, 09:29 AM

I am posting this on the two places where people have this so it may seem repetitive. What might have happened is that your firewire ports are actually dead. Firewire is NOT hot-swappable like they say it is, especially with a 6 pin lead, due to the six pin actively carrying a charge. When you plugged your camera in, you must have had the camera on, and it sent a small electrical short that fried a small jumper in the camera. I have seen this happen to many cameras here (Phoenix) more so because it is dry, and static charge is larger here, but I have seen it happen to XL-1, Xl-2, DVX, and a HD-100U. I have had to send a personal camera of mine in, due to this exact same thing.

Hope this helps.

Peter
Now that you say this, yes, it's true. We believe that it happened to us with a SONY XDCAM deck - the 6-pin FW got damaged and the deck had to go back. Before anything is turned on, the FW device is supposed to be plugged in. Then, we were told, you turn on things in the following order: external drives (if any), computer, deck/camera and after that start your NLE software.

Warren Shultz

January 7th, 2006, 10:17 PM

I had this problem in a previous Mac configuration with firewire ports suddenly being lost. I had to shut down, UNPLUG the Mac for a few minutes and then after rebooting, the firewire ports are restored.

Betsy Moore

June 4th, 2006, 02:36 PM

Hi, Peter, how much did it cost to have your firewire port repaired? Thanks:)